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Is Instagram a good tool for a beauty business?

Scrolling through the infinite pool of beautiful fashion OOTD posts, beauty queens in their essence, and interior design inspiration photos on Instagram, it’s easy to get caught up in it all and forget all adult responsibilities for the rest of the day.

But most of the stunning ‘goals’ style photos you see on Instagram will be coated with branding tags and hashtags trailing off into the pits of the ‘see more’ icon. These sort of posts will actually be blogger collaborations, businesses and paid subliminal advertising – Hence why their follower rates are high and their likes ass into the hundreds.

So if it works for them, is Instagram good for advertising your own beauty businesses?

The answer is both yes, and no. If you able to take professional and stunning photos of your services, or create make up tutorials to be posted frequently, then all you’ll need is a few hashtags here and there and you’re good to go!

Building up an Instagram following can be pretty fast, and images uploaded can be shared directly to Facebook – giving you double the exposure and making your new beauty business Facebook page extra pretty.

In nail pictures or beauty tutorial videos that often show thee fastest ever make over you’ve ever seen (hands flapping everywhere, strange blinks… until you realise it’s actually a sped up version…) you can tag the brands you’re using – which will provide more exposure when people search them, as well as the occasional shout out from the brands themselves! Having your work and services out there will help keep you motivated and will turn you into marketing whizz and on your way to building your Instagram empire.

However, if you’re from a small town and looking to host a small scale business, Instagram isn’t necessarily your best tool for gaining business: Hundreds of likes don’t turn into monetary profits, and neither does have thousands of followers.

Because Instagram is known and used worldwide, unless you’re looking to be a world known beauty blogger, stylist or make-up artist in the long haul, Instagram might be a dead end. Sure, it gets your name out there and any exposure is good exposure, but followers and likers can be from anywhere in the world! And whilst a Russian beauty fanatic may like your photos, she’s probably unlikely to travel to US to get her nails done…

Unless – like some bloggers and artists out there – your fan based leaps up to the tens of thousands, at which point brands will directly contact you to see if you will advertise their products. If you have what it takes to be ‘Instafamous’ then this could work out: Free products, free exposure and more demand. But this sort of profitable Instagramming takes years to gain.

So whilst Instagram is good for creating a portfolio, for a small business, it isn’t necessarily the best marketing tool. There’s no reason not to use it to keep clients up to date with new styles and inspiration for their next appointments.